Just wondering ...

Given the climate
would Chesterton have declared,
"White Chalk Matters"?

Ajax clerihew

Ajax
was a stalwart warrior during attacks,
but when it came to Achilles' armor he was completely undone
when Odysseus won.

A Bishop Explains Why You Should Read C.S. Lewis' Masterpiece "The Great Divorce" | ChurchPOP

Advice from Bishop Barron -



A Bishop Explains Why You Should Read C.S. Lewis' Masterpiece "The Great Divorce" | ChurchPOP

Pax et bonum

Moses Toeses Clerihew

If Moses
really supposes his toeses are roses,
then I'd be inclined to think
he's had too much to drink!

(With a nod to Singing in the Rain.)

Happy Birthday E. C. Bentley

Edmund Clerihew Bentley was born July 10, 1875. A schoolmate of Chesterton, he created while still in school the humorous verse form that bears his name, the clerihew. Chesterton wrote some clerihews, too, but his main connection with clerihews consists of his illustrations for some of Bentley's.

 

In honor of Bentley, a clerihew:

E. C. Bentley
evidently
knew just what to do
with a clerihew.

Chesterton sighting!

In a recent opinion piece about sex, The War on Chastity, Russell Shaw cites G. K. Chesterton:

G.K. Chesterton got a lot of things right. Here's one: "The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant." Evidence for the destructive consequences of tyrannical sex abounds in wrecked relationships, wrecked families, and wrecked lives.

Good piece, well worth reading.

Pax et bonum

Chesterton before God ( a cinquain)

 

G. K.
Chesterton stood
before the throne of God
telling a rollicking tale, and
God laughed.

Chesterton Scholar, Fr. Leo Hetzler, Passes Away

Father Leo Hetzler, C.S.B., a noted Chesterton scholar who helped launch the annual Rochester Chesterton Conference, died May 18, 2017, after a short illness. He was 91.

St. John Fisher College in Rochester, where he taught for many years, has a write up.

The article notes: "Fr. Hetzler then spent several years teaching in Canada in the 1960s, where he began what would become his lifelong interest in the Chesterton Society.  In 2002, he inaugurated the annual Chesterton Conference at Fisher, and in 2007, he became the first recipient of the Life Achievement Award presented by the American Chesterton Society."

I also quoted him in an article I wrote about Chesterton for the newspaper I used to work for.

May he rest in peace

Gilbert in transition; spat over

I just got the latest Gilbert.

In it, Dale Ahlquist announced some changes in the magazine, prompted in part by financial necessity, though I wonder if there some other factors in play.

Whatever the case, there have already been some changes, and there are apparently more in the works.

I wait to find out what Gilbert will become. It's been an important part of my life for a number of years now - one of the few print magazines I still receive, and the only one I read cover to cover.

One change that has occurred (on my part) is the end of a mini feud.

Last fall I noted in a snarky post that for some reason none of my clerihews had been published in more than five years - despite the fact that they had been appearing regularly for several years prior to that. I had submitted a number of them during those black hole years, but none of them surfaced. I wrote to ask what as going on, and even spoke to Dale.

Then, suddenly, after almost six years, one of mine appeared in the last issue. I wondered if it was a fluke. But this new issue contained another one.

Maybe they had all been buried under a slush pile and with all the rains this year the slush finally washed away to reveal them.

Whatever the case, thank you editors.

Why, I may even start submitting some more recent ones!

Chesterton, the poet

Over at Social Matter, there was a brief look at Chesterton as a poet:  "Poets: G. K. Chesterton"

Interesting read - praise for his poetry from a non-Chestertonian.

Peter Maurin - Chesterton and Belloc did not have blinkers!

 

A Few Englishmen

R. H. Tawney said
that the Englishmen wear blinkers.
Because they wear blinkers
the Englishmen
lack vision.
Because they lack vision
the Englishmen
are very strong
for supervision.
And supervision
is not a substitute
for vision.
A few Englishmen
got rid of their blinkers.
Among the Englishmen
who got rid of their blinkers
one can name:
William Cobbett,
John Ruskin,
William Morris,
Arthur Penty,
Hilaire Belloc,
G. K. Chesterton,
Eric Gill.
The best of all
is Eric Gill.

(This is one of  Peter Maurin's Easy Essay printed in the New York Catholic Worker. Maurin, along with Dorothy Day, created the Catholic Worker movement.)

Peter Maurin - Christianity Untried (Chesterton)

Chesterton says:
“The Christian ideal
has not been tried
and found wanting.
It has been found difficult
and left untried.”
Christianity has not been tried
because people thought
it was impractical.
And men have tried everything
except Christianity.
And everything
that men have tried
has failed.

(Peter Maurin, along with Dorothy Day, created the Catholic Worker movement. Maurin, originally from France, wrote "Easy Essays" summarizing his beliefs and those of other thinkers and writers and philosophers.)

They taught us to believe in dragons

"And a few encounters with living legends didn't hurt: I studied at the University of Oxford, and the English syllabus stopped at 1832, because there were two gentlemen named Tolkien and C.S. Lewis who had resisted taking it any further — they were both teaching there and we went to their lectures. So we encountered, thanks to those two, things like Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and above all, Shakespeare. A friend of mine once said, 'They taught us to believe in dragons.'" - The Lost Land of Susan Cooper

Susan Cooper is an award-winning writer of young adult and fantasy fiction, including the The Dark is Rising sequence. She also co-wrote the play Foxfire.

For all the snowflakes (clerihew)

President Donald Trump
blazes away as if still on the stump.
Many a fragile snowflake
finds the heat hard to take.

A St. Jerome clerihew

Irascible St. Jerome
was justly noted for his biblical tome,
but he was upset that no one would look
at his vegetarian cook book.

A Torricelli clerihew

Evangelista Torricelli
was fond of refried beans and jalapeno jelly.
One of his lesser-known achievements was a way to measure
frequent bouts of abdominal pressure.